New innovation could pave the way for more successful oyster farming in QLD

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A Moreton Bay oyster farmer designed a floating wave suppression structure that helped protect his farm during Tropical Cyclone Alfred. Queensland's oyster industry has lagged behind other states, but this innovation could pave the way for more successful open-water farming.

Transcript

00:00My name's Colin Wren, I'm from the Gold Coast and this is my oyster farm.

00:08We're up at North Stradbroke Island just off the Diablo Passage.

00:14This lease here is six hectares, we've got about probably 30,000 baskets in this oyster

00:21lease here.

00:22So we're probably growing about four million oysters all over our farms.

00:26We've got a farm down in Wallace Lake, we've got a farm up here in North Stradbroke Island

00:29and we've still got some more oyster leases down there at South Stradbroke Island also.

00:35The Queensland oyster industry has been struggling for a bit and there's been no innovation or

00:40anything like that.

00:41So we've come here, we've looked at the area and just went, I think we can make this work

00:45and yeah, we have created something pretty special here.

00:51We've got our wave suppression for starters, that protects our farm.

00:54If we didn't have the wave suppression here, there's no way we would be able to do our

00:58flip farm system and run our ZAPCO baskets and we also have floating pontoons in the

01:03area.

01:04We are the first people in Queensland to be doing the flip farm system.

01:09So far it's been really, really good for the business.

01:13I'm Andrew Robson, I'm the owner operator of Caringal Oysters on Moreton Island or Melgumpin.

01:18More so the president of the Queensland Oyster Growers Association for nearly a year now.

01:24Colin Wren from Gold Coast Oysters has been farming for a couple of years now.

01:28What he's done is basically establish or demonstrate the potential of the Queensland industry.

01:34So we haven't had a major change in the way oysters are farmed in Queensland for decades

01:40from the long lines and baskets.

01:42It's all happening.

01:45Right now we're about to flip our flip farm baskets and what it does is we can control

01:49the overcatch and all the barnacle when it all spawns.

01:54Ready to go?

01:59So we go along every four weeks, we flip the baskets over and we dry them out for, depending

02:04on the heat, two to five days at a time.

02:08And after three years of doing this every four weeks, what that creates is that we have

02:13a really clean oyster and it reduces our workload throughout the years.

02:20That's one of the holdbacks in the Queensland industry is the labour and the processing

02:25to control overcatch.

02:27With floating bag systems or flip bag systems, by just simply driving down the boat and flipping

02:32the bags every month, you're reducing the labour and again improving quality, growth time.

02:38So on this line here we've got 550 baskets and doing so we're able to flip our 550 baskets

02:48under 30 seconds.

02:49I hate the word, but it's a game changer for the industry and I think as a result of this,

02:56the industry will boom over the next decade.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended